First ever real image of a black hole

21.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

u/Roostalol Apr 10 '19

Light from the super-heated matter that is slowly being swallowed by the black hole as it orbits around.

6

u/TheDarkWayne Apr 10 '19

So not only is it a black hole the light we see is matter from other celestial bodies it could have destroyed?

9

u/lilmitchell545 Apr 10 '19

Correct, that’s currently celestial bodies/light getting rekt on the way inside the black hole, orbiting it as it’s being swallowed

5

u/TheDarkWayne Apr 10 '19

This is incredible

2

u/lilmitchell545 Apr 10 '19

I know, space is dope

3

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19 edited Apr 12 '19

[deleted]

3

u/lilmitchell545 Apr 10 '19

Right, my bad. Not currently happening, but that’s what we’re seeing. A moment captured in time from many, many, MANY years ago. Fuckin beautiful, man. Space.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

~55 million years ago.

1

u/xavvy01 Apr 10 '19

Is that a blazar?

2

u/Roostalol Apr 11 '19

No, it's the same mechanism as a quasar, but much closer than usual and producing much less light than a quasar. These are all different types of AGN (Active Galactic Nuclei), but now we've finally seen the Black Hole part of the Nucleus. For it to be a blazar, the jet would have to be pointed directly at us. You can look up pictures of the host galaxy, M87, to see which way the jet is pointed.